New power ideas

[Mrred1]

So, you probably no there are very few ways to generate power. It can be quite difficult to get enough power especially early in the game. I have some solutions:

Smokestack-

burns off of wood.

Nuclear power plant-

produces lots of power, it needs a steady supply of uranium to keep going. If it explodes, radiation spreads through a large part of the map.

Hydro Generator- if you happen to  have water on your map, you can build a large building that produces power via water.

Lightning rod-attracts lighting to it, which then can quickly disperse energy through batteries

Kinetic energy- a bike like device that is powered by a colonist. Good exercise!

[LouisTBR]

Now, this is all a good idea, but we really need to break it down into three categories:

Supply - How much of a certain resource it will take.
Conversion - How much of a certain resource is required to generate a certain amount of power
Appeal - How many players will build the structure due to different supply/conversion rates.

Now, let's start with the smokestack -

Trees are a limited resource in the game. They take a lot longer than regular plants to grow, and many maps have a limited supply. This makes it near impossible to become a full-time producer as it will need regular wood supplies which we simply can't handle. If this were to go ahead, it would need to generate an almighty amount of power per x wood, which would overpower it. Due to the constant wood supply, and the fact that it would have to be refilled regularly, you would need to be able to use a hopper rather than manually feed it wood. Too much work in my opinion.

VERDICT - NO

Next up, nuclear power plant:

The nuclear power plant in real life is a brilliant energy producer, and many wealthier towns and cities use these to power their comparatively small population. This seems a brilliant fit for a Rimworld colony, apart from one thing... Uranium. Uranium is a resource as rare as gold in Rimworld, and when you do see a deposit/vein, it only goes to a maximum of 3x3 if you're lucky. Unless you are going to use 0.01 uranium per 1 day of steady 100 power, which is currently impossible due to the fact you cannot break down materials yet. Personally, I think this would require a lower uranium rarity to the point where it is just as common as silver, and you would need a whole new system to break the materials down.
VERDICT - NO

Will carry on later

[Wex]

The tidal generator is actually a good idea. It would be of lenghty construction, but it would provide a constant supply (albeit not that much per single generator) of energy! 

[Goo Poni]

Now, this is all a good idea, but we really need to break it down into three categories:

Supply - How much of a certain resource it will take.
Conversion - How much of a certain resource is required to generate a certain amount of power
Appeal - How many players will build the structure due to different supply/conversion rates.

Now, let's start with the smokestack -

Trees are a limited resource in the game. They take a lot longer than regular plants to grow, and many maps have a limited supply. This makes it near impossible to become a full-time producer as it will need regular wood supplies which we simply can't handle. If this were to go ahead, it would need to generate an almighty amount of power per x wood, which would overpower it. Due to the constant wood supply, and the fact that it would have to be refilled regularly, you would need to be able to use a hopper rather than manually feed it wood. Too much work in my opinion.

I use a bunch of generators in a modpack that run off of wood supplied by hoppers just to have something that eats through the several thousand wood I seem to accumulate just from clearing grown trees within about 70-80 tiles of my colony. I don't even care for the power, I just want some use for the wood other than selling it for a pittance of silver. It doesn't feel limited to me. Maybe if you're way up north in the frozen wastes where flora is non existant, then sure. wood is a limited resource. But then that introduces a mildly interesting choice in your game. Do you use the wood for construction or crafting effors, or do you use it for supplying much needed power.



@OP's nuclear power plant idea

Several mods introduce nuclear power plants, take a look at those. The Crash Landing mod crashes a leaking ship reactor core on the map which you CAN use for power, but it irradiates a fairly large area of the map, causing health issues, as well as turning the nearby area into a radioactive waste, unusable for plantlife.

[chaotix14]

Hold on a tick, while I agree mostly on the verdict of the smokestack(Though it could serve as an early game option beyond solar and wind) I think we're cutting the corners a bit on the nuclear power plant. You can make the reactor run as long as you want/feels balanced on one piece of fuel. How about instead of putting it down as 0.01 uranium consumed per day, we put it down like this: 100(or however many you'd like) days run-time per uranium consumed. So instead of it requiring a regular consumption of very small amounts of uranium, make it take a full 1 unit(or perhaps actual fuel rods) and last a good long time. If you really wanted you could probably even make it in such a way that the spend fuel can be recovered and reworked to be used for RTG's. My verdict would be it can be done in a balanced manner, so yeah, but not via a steady supply mechanic and rather taking new fuel after a long cycle time.

The hydro generator: While a good idea at first sight.... It only takes seconds to start wondering, where exactly does the power come from? As far as we can tell the water is stagnant, and going far enough into the sea on beach maps to make wave power generators well it would require a boat or something to traverse the otherwise impassible water. Oh, and something to allow our colonists to build stuff underwater without you know drowning.
Verdict: No.

Lightning rod: Ah, an idea that sounds like it could work easily, however science is here to stand in your way. You see there are a few problems, which mostly are the reason why you don't see lightning rods power plants IRL.
The electrical charge is a big problem here, how do you make the rod seem more attractive than the earth to the lightning? Not that hard actually, make sure it has the opposite charge of the lightning strike you anticipate... And there we have a problem, even a partially charged battery would be far less attractive to lightning than the earth with it's neutral charge. So the battery would need to be empty to attract the charge, not that big of a deal right? Not really no, but then there's the other problem with charging a battery with a lightning strike. You see a lightning strike is only the positive or the negative charge, to charge a battery you need to take as much electrons from the + side as you push electrons into the - side, and lightning doesn't do that. You could set up a contraption to allow the excess electrons on the + side to flow into the earth as the lightning fills up the - side of the battery, but it'd be a bit complex to do so.
On to the next problem point, how do you make sure only either the negatively charged or the positively charged lightning to hit the lightning rod, because if the wrong kind hits that rod you'll lose quite a lot of juice. Problem is, there really isn't a good way to do this.
Finally, heat to seal the coffin with one last nail. Let's ignore all the problems with getting the lightning to hit and charge the batteries. The conduits we are working with can explode when suddenly the power from a couple of batteries is pushed through them. A battery holds 10 MJ(or 10,000,000 Joules), the average for negative lightning(the weaker kind) is about 500 MJ(50 batteries) and they can be several times as powerful as that. The average bolt of positive lightning is about 10 times stronger, in other words an explosion the size of 500 batteries. So yeah, let's try not to blow up our colonies with ridiculous ideas.
Verdict: nope.

Kinetic energy: Aside from the question under what kind of job you'd put that, I'd say it's viable. Trading the time of your colonists to produce power doesn't sound like a bad option when you desperately need that heater/cooler/cooker/guns or something else working but are stuck with low power during the night/eclipse. Though outside of those scenarios you'd need unrealistic amounts of power to be produced by colonists for it to be worth it.
Verdict: Not worth it.

[Bozzarr]

Water wave based power generation does not need to be deployed far from sea.
Actually it can be deployed along the coast.

For large yield systems of this type it is beneficial that they are far away from land, but this one can be small system.
If I had any power in this matter, I would vote yes.

My personal Idea about new power generation would be: Compost power generator.
It would convert stale and rotten food into energy. Actually it would use heat and methane produced by decomposing nutrient matter, to create easily accessible electricity.
This system would come in 3 parts; hopper,explosive methane tank and actual generator.
Any food dropped into a hopper(which could be multiple connected to generator at once) would be entirely converted into methane. Methane would then be converted into electricity.
When all of the colony batteries are full, then generator would remain offline but methane would still be produced. Similar system was used in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.
Pipes for transporting of methane would also be required, as well as valves for those pipes.
I can make some graphics, if this idea excites you.

[Mrred1]

I appreciate everyone's responses. As for resource consumption, it would be like one wood/uranium per few days or something like that. I think the kinetic energy would be useful for powering a heater or cooler early on. Even though science disagrees with lightning rods, I think it would be okay to put in rimworld. I mean, are mechanoid robots and thumbs real?

[LouisTBR]

The kinetic energy seems like a waste. You could spend your colonists' time getting a future-proof solution up.

[Toggle]

Smokestack- burns off of wood.

Sure. A machine that turns wood into a power source, when you have tons but don't use it, is useful.

Nuclear power plant- produces lots of power, it needs a steady supply of uranium to keep going. If it explodes, radiation spreads through a large part of the map.

Eh, nay. I feel like it would cost too much uranium, wouldn't be used that much, wouldn't have much uranium to power all of it.

Hydro Generator- if you happen to  have water on your map, you can build a large building that produces power via water.

I really like this idea. Being able to plant a large generator that has to be in water one side and land the other, produces steady power, sort of like the wind turbines but only on certain maps.

Lightning rod-attracts lighting to it, which then can quickly disperse energy through batteries

Eh, I think this wouldn't be too useful.

Kinetic energy- a bike like device that is powered by a colonist. Good exercise!

Eh, how much power would it make? I don't think a enough to justify a colonist.

[jamesinar]

Make the kinetic generator a hamster wheel. Then you can make squirrels, hares, and boomrats generate power.

[Loki88]

Make the kinetic generator a hamster wheel. Then you can make squirrels, hares, and boomrats generate power.

Yes!

[Mrred1]

Absolutely! Boomrat wheels! I think the kinetic powerplant should make maybe 100 watts tops

[Jorlem]

For the smokestack, I like it.  It could be a good early game power option, to replace solar panels which should need some degree of research.  (They are far more technically complex than steam turbines, even.)

[Wex]

I personally like the compost fuel generator.
It gives you something to do with rotten food and raider's corpses!

[Loki88]

I like the idea of steam turbines. IRL there are ones that run off of straw/ hay. I don't think it's too big of a stretch.